Brothers.“There are none so dependent on the kindness of others as those that are exuberantly kind themselves.”Chapter Nineteen.Life and Death.“As we descended, following hope,There sat the shadow feared of man.”Perhaps it was well for the permanence of Cheriton’s new-born happiness that he had but a very short glimpse of Ruth. The next morning, the Oakby party started early, that Mr Lester might arrive in time to attend a magistrate’s meeting at Hazelby, while Ruth remained for the later train that was to take her on her separate visit. She would not give him a chance of seeing her alone, and one look, one clasp of the hand, and—“Remember your promise” was all the satisfaction he obtained from her. Yet he could hardly collect his thoughts to answer his father’s many questions on their journey home, and trying to shout through the noise of the train made him cough so much that his grandmother scolded him for catching such a bad cold.“Young men are so foolish,” she said, but she did not look at all uneasy.Hergrandchildren’s illnesses were never serious; and all the Lesters thought any amount of discomfort preferable to “having a fuss made.” Cherry hardly knew himself how ill he was feeling, as they reached home and the day went on; but he was so weary with bad nights and fatigue that it was a perpetual effort to remember that all his suspense of every sort was over, that the examination was passed, and that Ruth was his. He lay on the sofa trying to rest; but the cough disturbed him, and by dinner-time he was obliged to own himself beaten and to go to bed, saying that a night’s rest would quite set him up again.“Boys have no moderation,” said Mr Lester, in a tone of annoyance. “It is well it is all over now. Cheriton might have taken quite as good a place without overworking himself in this way.”Alvar, not understanding that peculiarly English form of anxiety that shows itself in shortness of temper, thought this remark very unfeeling. Mrs Lester suggested some simple remedy for the cough; Cherry promised to try it, and was left to his “night’s rest.”He woke in the early morning from a short, feverish sleep, to such pain and breathlessness and such a sense of serious illness as he had never experienced in his life, and, thoroughly frightened and bewildered, was trying to think how he could call any one, when his door was softly opened, and Alvar came in.“I heard you cough so much,” he said. “You cannot sleep. I am afraid you are ill.”“Very ill,” said Cherry. “You must send some one for the doctor.”He was but just able to tell Alvar where to find the young groom who could ride into Hazelby to fetch him; and soon there was terrible alarm through all the prosperous household, as, roused one after another, they came to see what was amiss. Nettie fled, with her hands up to her ears, right out into the dewy garden, away from the house, afraid to hear what the doctor said of Cherry. Mr Lester gave vent to one outburst of rage with examiners, examination, and Oxford generally, then braced himself to wait in silence for tidings; as he had waited once before when his wife lay in mortal danger—would the verdict be the same now? Mrs Lester preserved her self-possession, sent for the keeper’s wife, who was the best nurse at hand, and though sadly at a loss what remedies to suggest, sat down to watch her grandson, because it was her place to do so.They were all too thankful for any help in the crisis to wonder that it was Alvar who held Cherry in an easier position, and soothed him with quiet tenderness.When the doctor at length arrived, he pronounced that Cheriton was suffering from a violent attack of inflammation of the lungs. He was very ill; but his youth and previous good health were in his favour. Overwork and the neglected cold would doubtless account for it.“Will it be over—in a fortnight?” said Cherry, suddenly.“We’ll hope so—we’ll hope so,” said the doctor. “You have only to do as you are told, you know. Now, have you a good nurse?” turning to Mrs Lester.“Yes, we think Mrs Thornton very trustworthy—she was nursery-maid here before she married.”“There must be as few people about him as possible. No talking and no excitement.”“But—Alvar will stay?” said Cherry, wistfully. “Father, he came in the night—I want him.”“Hush, hush, my boy—yes, of course he will stay with you if you like,” said Mr Lester, hastily.“Of course,” said Alvar, with a curious accent, half-proud, half-tender, as he laid his hand on Cheriton’s.The foreign brother was the last person whom Mr Adamson expected to see in such a capacity; but if he was inefficient, both he and his patient would probably soon discover it; he looked the most self-possessed of the party, and his manner soothed Cheriton. Mrs Thornton had plenty of practical experience to supply his inevitable ignorance. Cheriton was exceedingly ill; his strength did not hold out against the remedies as well as had been hoped, and he suffered so much as to be hardly ever clearly conscious.“I was so happy!” he said several times with a sort of wonder, and his father felt that the words gave him another pang.Mr Lester was threatened with the most terrible sorrow that could befall him, and no mitigation of the agony was possible to him. He thought that his best-loved son would die, and made up his mind to the worst, feeling hope impossible; but he made a conscientious effort at endurance, an effort sadly unsuccessful.“Eh! my son,” said his old mother, “he is a good lad, take that comfort.”And this reserved hint at the one real consolation was almost the only attempt at comforting each other that any of them made. No one tried to “make the best of it,” to look at the hopeful side, or to find in any mutual tenderness a little lightening of the burden. They held apart from each other with a curious shyness, and as far as possible pursued their several businesses. Nettie went to her lessons, and refused to hear a word of sympathy from her friends, and when at last she could endure the agony no longer, ran away by herself into the woods and hid herself all day. Why should they kiss her and give her flowers—it did not cure Cherry, or make it less dreadful that another doctor was coming from Edinburgh, because Mr Adamson thought him so ill. But she did not want to see him, and had no instinct whatever to do anything for him. Speech was no relief to any of them; it was easier to conceal than to indulge their feelings; and Mr Lester went about silent and stern; Nettie attempted to comfort no one but the dogs; and her grandmother found no relief but in talking of Cherry’s “folly in overworking himself” to Virginia, who came hurriedly at the first report that reached Elderthwaite. She was a rare visitor; it was characteristic of her relations with Alvar that a sort of shyness kept her away. She forgot to be shy, however, when Alvar came to speak to her for a moment, and sprang towards him.“Oh! dear Alvar, this is terrible. I am so sorry for you. But you think he will be better.”“Yes, surely,” said Alvar, as if no other view had occurred to him. “Mi dona, this is wrong that I should let you seek me; but I cannot leave him—he suffers so much—that cough is frightful.”“But he likes to have you with him?”“Yes, I can lift him best, and I do not ask him how he is when he cannot speak,” said Alvar, with the simplicity that was so like sarcasm. “Ah! it is not right to let you go back alone,mi Reyna—but I dare not stay.”“That does not matter; only take care of yourself,” said Virginia, as Alvar kissed her hand and opened the door for her, and promised to let her have news every day.But she went away tearful for more than Cheriton’s danger. Alvar had never told her that it comforted him to see her; he did not care whether she came or not.“Eh! my lass, what news have you?” said an anxious voice, and looking up, Virginia saw her uncle, looking unusually clerical for a week day, hanging about the path in front of her.“Alvar thinks he will be better, he is very ill now,” said Virginia; “they have sent for another doctor.”“Ah! that’s bad! There’s never been such another in all the country. Queenie, did I ever tell you how he kept up our credit with the bishop?”And Parson Seyton, whose nature was very different from his neighbour’s, spent a long hour in telling tales of Cherry’s boyhood to his willing listener. “Eh!” he concluded, “and I meant to fetch him over to hear our fine singing, and see how spick and span we are now-a-days—new surplice and all! Eh! he wrote me a sermon once—when he was a little lad not twelve years old—and I’ll swear it might have been preached with the best.”Although Virginia had said nothing and done little to mend matters at Elderthwaite, there had been a certain revival of the elements of respectability. A drunken old farmer had been succeeded by his son, who had been brought up and had married elsewhere. This young couple came to church, and Virginia had by chance made acquaintance with the bride. Her husband got himself made churchwarden—Elderthwaite was not enlightened enough for parochial contests, and Virginia having shyly intimated that want of means need not stand in the way, the windows were mended, and some yards of cocoa-nut matting appeared in the aisle. There had always been a little forlorn singing; young Mr and Mrs Clement were musical, and the Sunday children were collected in the week and taught to sing. The parson had been presented with the surplice, and as by this time he would have done most things to please his pretty niece, accepted it with some pride. Whether from the effect of these splendours, or from consideration for the fair attentive face that he never failed to see before him, the parson himself began to conduct the service with a slight regard to decency and order; and being with his Seyton sense of humour fully conscious of the improvement, and, with the simplicity that was like a grain of salt in his character, rather proud of it, had looked forward to Cherry’s approbation.“Eh!” he said, “I’d like to see him—I’d like to see him.”“He mustn’t see any one,” said Virginia; “they will hardly let his father go in.”“Well, it’s a pity it’s not the Frenchman. Eh! bless my soul, my darling, I forgot.”“Alvar is almost ready to think so too, uncle,” said Virginia, hardly able to help laughing.“If I could do anything that he would like—catch him some trout—” suggested the parson.“Uncle,” said Virginia timidly, “in church, when any one is sick or in trouble, they pray for them. They will mention Cherry’s name at Oakby to-morrow. Could not we—”“Ay, my lass, it would show a very proper respect,” said the parson; “and the lad would like it too.”And of all the many hearty prayers that were sent up on that Sunday for Cheriton Lester’s recovery, none were more sincere than rough Parson Seyton’s.The Edinburgh doctor could only tell them what they knew before, that though there was very great danger, the case was not hopeless. A few days must decide it. In the meantime he must not talk—he must not see any one who would cause the slightest agitation; and poor Mr Lester, whose self-control had suddenly broken down before the interview, was about to be peremptorily banished; but Cherry put out his hand and caught his father’s, looking up in his face.“Send for the boys,” he said.“Yes, but you know you mustn’t see them, my boy—my dear boy.”“But Cherry will like to know they are here,” said Alvar, in the steady voice that always seemed like a support.“They shall come. What else—what is it, Cherry?” said Mr Lester, as his son still gazed at him wistfully.“Nothing—notyet,” whispered Cheriton. “Oh! I want to say so much, father! I am so glad Alvar came home!”The words and the sort of smile with which they were spoken completely overpowered Mr Lester; but the doctor, who was still present, would not permit another word.“You destroy his only chance,” he said; and after that nothing would have induced Mr Lester to let Cheriton speak to him. That evening, however, when he was alone with Alvar, Cherry’s confused thoughts cleared themselves a little. He had been told to be hopeful, and he did not feel himself to be dying! while with his whole heart he wished for life—the young bright life that was so full of love and joy, of which no outward trouble, no wearing anxiety, and no cold and selfish discontent had rendered him weary. Home and friends, the long lines of moorland that were shining in the sunset light, the hard work in the world behind and before him, the answering love of the woman whom he had chosen, were all beautiful and good to him; he felt no need of rest, no lack of joy.He prayed for his life, not because he was afraid to die, but because he wished to live; and when, with a sort of awful, solemn curiosity, he tried to realise that death might be his portion, his thoughts, not quite under his own control, turned forcibly to those near to him. If he was to die, there were things he must say to his father, to Jack, to Alvar, a hundred messages to his friends in the village—they would let him see Mr Ellesmere then—when it did not matter how much he hurt himself by speaking; but one thing could not wait—“Alvar, Imustsay something.”“Yes, I can hear,” said Alvar, seeing the necessity, and leaning towards him.“When there is no chance, you will tell me?”“Yes.”“But I must tell you about—her—a secret.”“I will keep it. Some one you love?”“It is Ruth; we are engaged. Does she know—this?”Alvar’s surprise was intense; but he answered quietly,—“I suppose that Virginia will have told her.”“Let her know; it would be worse later. Write to her—you—when it is hopeless.”“Yes,” said Alvar.“My love—my one love! And say she must come and see me once more. She will—Iwould go anywhere.”“Hush, hush! my brother; I understand you. I am to find out if Virginia has written to her cousin; and if you are worse, I write and ask her if she will come. I will do it.”“Thanks. I can’t thank you. God knows how I love her.”“Not one more word,” said Alvar, steadily. “Now you must rest.”“I shall get better,” said Cherry.But as the pain grew fiercer, and his strength grew less, this security failed; and then it was well indeed for Cheriton that, be his desires what they might, he believed with all his warm heart that it was a loving Hand that had given him life both here and hereafter.Time passed on, and Cheriton still lay in great danger and suffering. It was a sorrowful Sunday in Oakby when his name headed the list of sick persons who were prayed for in church. Every one could tell of some boyish prank, some merry saying, some act of kindness that he had done; and now that he was believed to be dying, be the facts what they might, there was a sort of sense that he had been deprived of his rights by his foreign brother.“It had a deal better a’ been yon black-bearded chap. What’s he to us?” many a one muttered.Alas! that the thought would intrude itself into the father’s mind, spite of the gratitude he could not but feel!But Alvar went on with his anxious watching, heeding no one but his brother. That Sunday was a day of great suffering and suspense, and all through the afternoon came lads from the outlying farms, children from the village, messengers from half the neighbourhood to hear the last report. Silence and quiet were still so forcibly insisted on, that even Mr Lester was advised by the doctor to keep out of his son’s room; but Mr Ellesmere came up to the house at his request and waited, for all thought that the useless prohibition would soon be taken away; and in the meantime his presence was a support to the father and grandmother, the latter of whom, at least, could bear to hear Cheriton praised.Towards evening, Alvar, who had scarcely stirred all day, was sent downstairs by Mr Adamson to get some food, and as he came into the dining-room, where the customary Sunday tea was laid on the table, he was greeted with a start of alarm. The two poor boys, tired, hungry, and frightened, had arrived but a few minutes before, and were standing about silent and awestruck.Jack leant on the mantelpiece, with his lips shut as if they would never unclose again; Bob was staring out of the window; Nettie sat forlorn on one of a long row of chairs. Not one of them made an attempt to comfort or to speak to the others; they were almost as inaccessible in the sullen intensity of their grief as the two dogs, who, poor things! shared it, as they sat staring at Nettie, as dogs will when they do not comprehend the situation.Alvar, with his olive face and grave dark eyes, looked, after all his fatigue, less changed than Jack, who was deadly pale, and hardly able to control his trembling.“Ah! Jack,” said Alvar, in his soft, slow tones, “he will be glad to hear that you are come!”Jack did not speak at first, and Alvar, as silent as the rest, went up to the table and poured out some claret and took some bread.“It’s quite hopeless, I suppose?” said Jack, suddenly.“No, do not say so!” said Alvar, half fiercely. “It is not so; but, oh, we fear it!” he added, in a voice of inexpressible melancholy.Jack could not utter another word—he was half choking; but Nettie, unable to restrain herself any longer, began to cry piteously.“Don’t Nettie,” said Bob, savagely.“Ah!” said Alvar, “poor child, she is breaking her heart!” he went over to her, and took her in his arms and kissed her. “Poor little sister!” he said. “Ah! how we love him!”The simple expression of the thought that was aching in the minds of all of them seemed to give a sort of relief. Nettie submitted to be caressed and soothed, and the boys came a little closer, and gave themselves the comfort of looking as wretched as they felt.“Now I must eat some supper, for I dare not stay,” said Alvar; “and you—you have been travelling—come and take some.”The poor boys began to find out how hungry they were, and Bob began to eat heartily; while the force of example made Jack take a few mouthfuls, till the vicar came into the room.“Jack,” he said quietly, “Cherry is so very anxious to see you that Mr Adamson gives leave for you to go for one moment. Not the twins—they must wait a little. Can you stand it?”“Yes, sir,” said Jack, though, great strong fellow as he was, his knees trembled.“Then, Alvar, are you ready? Have you really eaten and rested? You had better take him in.”Jack stood for a moment beside the bed, without attempting a word, hardly able to see that Cherry smiled at him, till he felt the hot fingers clasp his with more strength than he had looked for, and his hand was put into Alvar’s, while Cheriton held them both, and whispered, “Jack, youwill—”“Yes, Cherry, I will,” said Jack, understanding him. “I will, always.”“There, that must be enough,” said Alvar. “Jack is very good—he shall come again.”“Oh! don’t send me quite away,” whispered Jack, as they moved a little. “Let me stay outside. I could go errands—I’ll not stir.”Alvar nodded, and Jack went out into the deserted gallery, where, of course, he and Bob were not to sleep at present. The old sitting-room was full of things required by the nurses, and Jack sat down on a little window-seat in the passage, which looked out towards the stables. He saw Bob and Nettie arm-in-arm, trying to distract their minds by visiting their pets, and his grandmother, too, coming slowly and heavily to look at her poultry. He had not seen his father, and dreaded the thought of the meeting. Idly he watched the ordinary movement of the servants, the inquirers coming and going, and he thought of the brother, best-loved of all and most loving—oh! if he could but hear Cherry laugh at him again!Upstairs all was silent, save for poor Cheriton’s painful cough and difficult breathing; and presently it seemed to Jack that the cough was less frequent, till, after an interval of stillness, the doctor came out. Jack’s heart stood still. Was this the fatal summons?“Your brother is asleep,” said Mr Adamson. “I feel more hopeful. I am obliged to go, but I shall be here early. Every one who is not wanted had better go to bed.”He went downstairs as he spoke, but Jack remained where he was, thinking he might be at least useful in taking messages or calling people. He had never sat up all night before, and, anxious as he was, the hours were woefully long.Once or twice his grandmother came to the head of the stairs, and Jack signalled that all was quiet. At last, over the stable clock, the dawn came creeping up; there was the solitary note of a bird, then a great twitter and the cawing of the rooks.Jack put his head out of the window, and felt the fresh, sharp air blowing in his face. A cock crowed—would it wake Cherry? Some one touched him on the shoulder; he drew his head in, and Alvar stood by his side.“He is much better,” he said. “He has been so long asleep, and now the pain is less, and he can breathe—he is much better.”Jack was afraid to speak, but he gave Alvar’s hand a great squeeze.“Now, will you go and tell my father this? Ah, how he will rejoice! But do not let him come.”Jack sped downstairs and to his father’s door, which opened at the sound of a footstep.“Papa, he is better. Alvar says he will get well.”Half a dozen hasty questions and answers, then Mr Lester put Jack away from him and shut his door.They could hardly believe that the relief was more than a respite, but the gleam of hope brightened as the day advanced. Cherry slept again, and woke, able to speak and say that he was better.“And I must tell you, sir,” said Mr Adamson, afterwards, “that it is in a great measure owing to your son’s good nursing.”Mr Lester turned round to Alvar, who was beside him.“I owe you a debt nothing can repay. I can never thank you for my boy’s life,” he said, warmly.“Ah, do youthankme? You insult me!” cried Alvar, suddenly and fiercely. “Is he more to you than to me—my one friend—my brother—Cherito mio!” And, completely overcome, Alvar clasped his hands over his face and dashed out of the room.Jack followed; but his admiration of Alvar’s self-control was somewhat shaken by the sort of fury of indignation and emotion that seemed to stifle him, as he poured out a torrent of words, half Spanish, half English, walking about the room and shedding tears of excitement.“I say,” said Jack, “they won’t letyougo in to Cherry next, and then what will he do?”Alvar subsided after a few moments, and said, simply and rather sadly,—“It is that my father does not understand me. But no matter—Cherry is better—all is right now.”
“There are none so dependent on the kindness of others as those that are exuberantly kind themselves.”
“There are none so dependent on the kindness of others as those that are exuberantly kind themselves.”
“As we descended, following hope,There sat the shadow feared of man.”
“As we descended, following hope,There sat the shadow feared of man.”
Perhaps it was well for the permanence of Cheriton’s new-born happiness that he had but a very short glimpse of Ruth. The next morning, the Oakby party started early, that Mr Lester might arrive in time to attend a magistrate’s meeting at Hazelby, while Ruth remained for the later train that was to take her on her separate visit. She would not give him a chance of seeing her alone, and one look, one clasp of the hand, and—“Remember your promise” was all the satisfaction he obtained from her. Yet he could hardly collect his thoughts to answer his father’s many questions on their journey home, and trying to shout through the noise of the train made him cough so much that his grandmother scolded him for catching such a bad cold.
“Young men are so foolish,” she said, but she did not look at all uneasy.Hergrandchildren’s illnesses were never serious; and all the Lesters thought any amount of discomfort preferable to “having a fuss made.” Cherry hardly knew himself how ill he was feeling, as they reached home and the day went on; but he was so weary with bad nights and fatigue that it was a perpetual effort to remember that all his suspense of every sort was over, that the examination was passed, and that Ruth was his. He lay on the sofa trying to rest; but the cough disturbed him, and by dinner-time he was obliged to own himself beaten and to go to bed, saying that a night’s rest would quite set him up again.
“Boys have no moderation,” said Mr Lester, in a tone of annoyance. “It is well it is all over now. Cheriton might have taken quite as good a place without overworking himself in this way.”
Alvar, not understanding that peculiarly English form of anxiety that shows itself in shortness of temper, thought this remark very unfeeling. Mrs Lester suggested some simple remedy for the cough; Cherry promised to try it, and was left to his “night’s rest.”
He woke in the early morning from a short, feverish sleep, to such pain and breathlessness and such a sense of serious illness as he had never experienced in his life, and, thoroughly frightened and bewildered, was trying to think how he could call any one, when his door was softly opened, and Alvar came in.
“I heard you cough so much,” he said. “You cannot sleep. I am afraid you are ill.”
“Very ill,” said Cherry. “You must send some one for the doctor.”
He was but just able to tell Alvar where to find the young groom who could ride into Hazelby to fetch him; and soon there was terrible alarm through all the prosperous household, as, roused one after another, they came to see what was amiss. Nettie fled, with her hands up to her ears, right out into the dewy garden, away from the house, afraid to hear what the doctor said of Cherry. Mr Lester gave vent to one outburst of rage with examiners, examination, and Oxford generally, then braced himself to wait in silence for tidings; as he had waited once before when his wife lay in mortal danger—would the verdict be the same now? Mrs Lester preserved her self-possession, sent for the keeper’s wife, who was the best nurse at hand, and though sadly at a loss what remedies to suggest, sat down to watch her grandson, because it was her place to do so.
They were all too thankful for any help in the crisis to wonder that it was Alvar who held Cherry in an easier position, and soothed him with quiet tenderness.
When the doctor at length arrived, he pronounced that Cheriton was suffering from a violent attack of inflammation of the lungs. He was very ill; but his youth and previous good health were in his favour. Overwork and the neglected cold would doubtless account for it.
“Will it be over—in a fortnight?” said Cherry, suddenly.
“We’ll hope so—we’ll hope so,” said the doctor. “You have only to do as you are told, you know. Now, have you a good nurse?” turning to Mrs Lester.
“Yes, we think Mrs Thornton very trustworthy—she was nursery-maid here before she married.”
“There must be as few people about him as possible. No talking and no excitement.”
“But—Alvar will stay?” said Cherry, wistfully. “Father, he came in the night—I want him.”
“Hush, hush, my boy—yes, of course he will stay with you if you like,” said Mr Lester, hastily.
“Of course,” said Alvar, with a curious accent, half-proud, half-tender, as he laid his hand on Cheriton’s.
The foreign brother was the last person whom Mr Adamson expected to see in such a capacity; but if he was inefficient, both he and his patient would probably soon discover it; he looked the most self-possessed of the party, and his manner soothed Cheriton. Mrs Thornton had plenty of practical experience to supply his inevitable ignorance. Cheriton was exceedingly ill; his strength did not hold out against the remedies as well as had been hoped, and he suffered so much as to be hardly ever clearly conscious.
“I was so happy!” he said several times with a sort of wonder, and his father felt that the words gave him another pang.
Mr Lester was threatened with the most terrible sorrow that could befall him, and no mitigation of the agony was possible to him. He thought that his best-loved son would die, and made up his mind to the worst, feeling hope impossible; but he made a conscientious effort at endurance, an effort sadly unsuccessful.
“Eh! my son,” said his old mother, “he is a good lad, take that comfort.”
And this reserved hint at the one real consolation was almost the only attempt at comforting each other that any of them made. No one tried to “make the best of it,” to look at the hopeful side, or to find in any mutual tenderness a little lightening of the burden. They held apart from each other with a curious shyness, and as far as possible pursued their several businesses. Nettie went to her lessons, and refused to hear a word of sympathy from her friends, and when at last she could endure the agony no longer, ran away by herself into the woods and hid herself all day. Why should they kiss her and give her flowers—it did not cure Cherry, or make it less dreadful that another doctor was coming from Edinburgh, because Mr Adamson thought him so ill. But she did not want to see him, and had no instinct whatever to do anything for him. Speech was no relief to any of them; it was easier to conceal than to indulge their feelings; and Mr Lester went about silent and stern; Nettie attempted to comfort no one but the dogs; and her grandmother found no relief but in talking of Cherry’s “folly in overworking himself” to Virginia, who came hurriedly at the first report that reached Elderthwaite. She was a rare visitor; it was characteristic of her relations with Alvar that a sort of shyness kept her away. She forgot to be shy, however, when Alvar came to speak to her for a moment, and sprang towards him.
“Oh! dear Alvar, this is terrible. I am so sorry for you. But you think he will be better.”
“Yes, surely,” said Alvar, as if no other view had occurred to him. “Mi dona, this is wrong that I should let you seek me; but I cannot leave him—he suffers so much—that cough is frightful.”
“But he likes to have you with him?”
“Yes, I can lift him best, and I do not ask him how he is when he cannot speak,” said Alvar, with the simplicity that was so like sarcasm. “Ah! it is not right to let you go back alone,mi Reyna—but I dare not stay.”
“That does not matter; only take care of yourself,” said Virginia, as Alvar kissed her hand and opened the door for her, and promised to let her have news every day.
But she went away tearful for more than Cheriton’s danger. Alvar had never told her that it comforted him to see her; he did not care whether she came or not.
“Eh! my lass, what news have you?” said an anxious voice, and looking up, Virginia saw her uncle, looking unusually clerical for a week day, hanging about the path in front of her.
“Alvar thinks he will be better, he is very ill now,” said Virginia; “they have sent for another doctor.”
“Ah! that’s bad! There’s never been such another in all the country. Queenie, did I ever tell you how he kept up our credit with the bishop?”
And Parson Seyton, whose nature was very different from his neighbour’s, spent a long hour in telling tales of Cherry’s boyhood to his willing listener. “Eh!” he concluded, “and I meant to fetch him over to hear our fine singing, and see how spick and span we are now-a-days—new surplice and all! Eh! he wrote me a sermon once—when he was a little lad not twelve years old—and I’ll swear it might have been preached with the best.”
Although Virginia had said nothing and done little to mend matters at Elderthwaite, there had been a certain revival of the elements of respectability. A drunken old farmer had been succeeded by his son, who had been brought up and had married elsewhere. This young couple came to church, and Virginia had by chance made acquaintance with the bride. Her husband got himself made churchwarden—Elderthwaite was not enlightened enough for parochial contests, and Virginia having shyly intimated that want of means need not stand in the way, the windows were mended, and some yards of cocoa-nut matting appeared in the aisle. There had always been a little forlorn singing; young Mr and Mrs Clement were musical, and the Sunday children were collected in the week and taught to sing. The parson had been presented with the surplice, and as by this time he would have done most things to please his pretty niece, accepted it with some pride. Whether from the effect of these splendours, or from consideration for the fair attentive face that he never failed to see before him, the parson himself began to conduct the service with a slight regard to decency and order; and being with his Seyton sense of humour fully conscious of the improvement, and, with the simplicity that was like a grain of salt in his character, rather proud of it, had looked forward to Cherry’s approbation.
“Eh!” he said, “I’d like to see him—I’d like to see him.”
“He mustn’t see any one,” said Virginia; “they will hardly let his father go in.”
“Well, it’s a pity it’s not the Frenchman. Eh! bless my soul, my darling, I forgot.”
“Alvar is almost ready to think so too, uncle,” said Virginia, hardly able to help laughing.
“If I could do anything that he would like—catch him some trout—” suggested the parson.
“Uncle,” said Virginia timidly, “in church, when any one is sick or in trouble, they pray for them. They will mention Cherry’s name at Oakby to-morrow. Could not we—”
“Ay, my lass, it would show a very proper respect,” said the parson; “and the lad would like it too.”
And of all the many hearty prayers that were sent up on that Sunday for Cheriton Lester’s recovery, none were more sincere than rough Parson Seyton’s.
The Edinburgh doctor could only tell them what they knew before, that though there was very great danger, the case was not hopeless. A few days must decide it. In the meantime he must not talk—he must not see any one who would cause the slightest agitation; and poor Mr Lester, whose self-control had suddenly broken down before the interview, was about to be peremptorily banished; but Cherry put out his hand and caught his father’s, looking up in his face.
“Send for the boys,” he said.
“Yes, but you know you mustn’t see them, my boy—my dear boy.”
“But Cherry will like to know they are here,” said Alvar, in the steady voice that always seemed like a support.
“They shall come. What else—what is it, Cherry?” said Mr Lester, as his son still gazed at him wistfully.
“Nothing—notyet,” whispered Cheriton. “Oh! I want to say so much, father! I am so glad Alvar came home!”
The words and the sort of smile with which they were spoken completely overpowered Mr Lester; but the doctor, who was still present, would not permit another word.
“You destroy his only chance,” he said; and after that nothing would have induced Mr Lester to let Cheriton speak to him. That evening, however, when he was alone with Alvar, Cherry’s confused thoughts cleared themselves a little. He had been told to be hopeful, and he did not feel himself to be dying! while with his whole heart he wished for life—the young bright life that was so full of love and joy, of which no outward trouble, no wearing anxiety, and no cold and selfish discontent had rendered him weary. Home and friends, the long lines of moorland that were shining in the sunset light, the hard work in the world behind and before him, the answering love of the woman whom he had chosen, were all beautiful and good to him; he felt no need of rest, no lack of joy.
He prayed for his life, not because he was afraid to die, but because he wished to live; and when, with a sort of awful, solemn curiosity, he tried to realise that death might be his portion, his thoughts, not quite under his own control, turned forcibly to those near to him. If he was to die, there were things he must say to his father, to Jack, to Alvar, a hundred messages to his friends in the village—they would let him see Mr Ellesmere then—when it did not matter how much he hurt himself by speaking; but one thing could not wait—
“Alvar, Imustsay something.”
“Yes, I can hear,” said Alvar, seeing the necessity, and leaning towards him.
“When there is no chance, you will tell me?”
“Yes.”
“But I must tell you about—her—a secret.”
“I will keep it. Some one you love?”
“It is Ruth; we are engaged. Does she know—this?”
Alvar’s surprise was intense; but he answered quietly,—
“I suppose that Virginia will have told her.”
“Let her know; it would be worse later. Write to her—you—when it is hopeless.”
“Yes,” said Alvar.
“My love—my one love! And say she must come and see me once more. She will—Iwould go anywhere.”
“Hush, hush! my brother; I understand you. I am to find out if Virginia has written to her cousin; and if you are worse, I write and ask her if she will come. I will do it.”
“Thanks. I can’t thank you. God knows how I love her.”
“Not one more word,” said Alvar, steadily. “Now you must rest.”
“I shall get better,” said Cherry.
But as the pain grew fiercer, and his strength grew less, this security failed; and then it was well indeed for Cheriton that, be his desires what they might, he believed with all his warm heart that it was a loving Hand that had given him life both here and hereafter.
Time passed on, and Cheriton still lay in great danger and suffering. It was a sorrowful Sunday in Oakby when his name headed the list of sick persons who were prayed for in church. Every one could tell of some boyish prank, some merry saying, some act of kindness that he had done; and now that he was believed to be dying, be the facts what they might, there was a sort of sense that he had been deprived of his rights by his foreign brother.
“It had a deal better a’ been yon black-bearded chap. What’s he to us?” many a one muttered.
Alas! that the thought would intrude itself into the father’s mind, spite of the gratitude he could not but feel!
But Alvar went on with his anxious watching, heeding no one but his brother. That Sunday was a day of great suffering and suspense, and all through the afternoon came lads from the outlying farms, children from the village, messengers from half the neighbourhood to hear the last report. Silence and quiet were still so forcibly insisted on, that even Mr Lester was advised by the doctor to keep out of his son’s room; but Mr Ellesmere came up to the house at his request and waited, for all thought that the useless prohibition would soon be taken away; and in the meantime his presence was a support to the father and grandmother, the latter of whom, at least, could bear to hear Cheriton praised.
Towards evening, Alvar, who had scarcely stirred all day, was sent downstairs by Mr Adamson to get some food, and as he came into the dining-room, where the customary Sunday tea was laid on the table, he was greeted with a start of alarm. The two poor boys, tired, hungry, and frightened, had arrived but a few minutes before, and were standing about silent and awestruck.
Jack leant on the mantelpiece, with his lips shut as if they would never unclose again; Bob was staring out of the window; Nettie sat forlorn on one of a long row of chairs. Not one of them made an attempt to comfort or to speak to the others; they were almost as inaccessible in the sullen intensity of their grief as the two dogs, who, poor things! shared it, as they sat staring at Nettie, as dogs will when they do not comprehend the situation.
Alvar, with his olive face and grave dark eyes, looked, after all his fatigue, less changed than Jack, who was deadly pale, and hardly able to control his trembling.
“Ah! Jack,” said Alvar, in his soft, slow tones, “he will be glad to hear that you are come!”
Jack did not speak at first, and Alvar, as silent as the rest, went up to the table and poured out some claret and took some bread.
“It’s quite hopeless, I suppose?” said Jack, suddenly.
“No, do not say so!” said Alvar, half fiercely. “It is not so; but, oh, we fear it!” he added, in a voice of inexpressible melancholy.
Jack could not utter another word—he was half choking; but Nettie, unable to restrain herself any longer, began to cry piteously.
“Don’t Nettie,” said Bob, savagely.
“Ah!” said Alvar, “poor child, she is breaking her heart!” he went over to her, and took her in his arms and kissed her. “Poor little sister!” he said. “Ah! how we love him!”
The simple expression of the thought that was aching in the minds of all of them seemed to give a sort of relief. Nettie submitted to be caressed and soothed, and the boys came a little closer, and gave themselves the comfort of looking as wretched as they felt.
“Now I must eat some supper, for I dare not stay,” said Alvar; “and you—you have been travelling—come and take some.”
The poor boys began to find out how hungry they were, and Bob began to eat heartily; while the force of example made Jack take a few mouthfuls, till the vicar came into the room.
“Jack,” he said quietly, “Cherry is so very anxious to see you that Mr Adamson gives leave for you to go for one moment. Not the twins—they must wait a little. Can you stand it?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack, though, great strong fellow as he was, his knees trembled.
“Then, Alvar, are you ready? Have you really eaten and rested? You had better take him in.”
Jack stood for a moment beside the bed, without attempting a word, hardly able to see that Cherry smiled at him, till he felt the hot fingers clasp his with more strength than he had looked for, and his hand was put into Alvar’s, while Cheriton held them both, and whispered, “Jack, youwill—”
“Yes, Cherry, I will,” said Jack, understanding him. “I will, always.”
“There, that must be enough,” said Alvar. “Jack is very good—he shall come again.”
“Oh! don’t send me quite away,” whispered Jack, as they moved a little. “Let me stay outside. I could go errands—I’ll not stir.”
Alvar nodded, and Jack went out into the deserted gallery, where, of course, he and Bob were not to sleep at present. The old sitting-room was full of things required by the nurses, and Jack sat down on a little window-seat in the passage, which looked out towards the stables. He saw Bob and Nettie arm-in-arm, trying to distract their minds by visiting their pets, and his grandmother, too, coming slowly and heavily to look at her poultry. He had not seen his father, and dreaded the thought of the meeting. Idly he watched the ordinary movement of the servants, the inquirers coming and going, and he thought of the brother, best-loved of all and most loving—oh! if he could but hear Cherry laugh at him again!
Upstairs all was silent, save for poor Cheriton’s painful cough and difficult breathing; and presently it seemed to Jack that the cough was less frequent, till, after an interval of stillness, the doctor came out. Jack’s heart stood still. Was this the fatal summons?
“Your brother is asleep,” said Mr Adamson. “I feel more hopeful. I am obliged to go, but I shall be here early. Every one who is not wanted had better go to bed.”
He went downstairs as he spoke, but Jack remained where he was, thinking he might be at least useful in taking messages or calling people. He had never sat up all night before, and, anxious as he was, the hours were woefully long.
Once or twice his grandmother came to the head of the stairs, and Jack signalled that all was quiet. At last, over the stable clock, the dawn came creeping up; there was the solitary note of a bird, then a great twitter and the cawing of the rooks.
Jack put his head out of the window, and felt the fresh, sharp air blowing in his face. A cock crowed—would it wake Cherry? Some one touched him on the shoulder; he drew his head in, and Alvar stood by his side.
“He is much better,” he said. “He has been so long asleep, and now the pain is less, and he can breathe—he is much better.”
Jack was afraid to speak, but he gave Alvar’s hand a great squeeze.
“Now, will you go and tell my father this? Ah, how he will rejoice! But do not let him come.”
Jack sped downstairs and to his father’s door, which opened at the sound of a footstep.
“Papa, he is better. Alvar says he will get well.”
Half a dozen hasty questions and answers, then Mr Lester put Jack away from him and shut his door.
They could hardly believe that the relief was more than a respite, but the gleam of hope brightened as the day advanced. Cherry slept again, and woke, able to speak and say that he was better.
“And I must tell you, sir,” said Mr Adamson, afterwards, “that it is in a great measure owing to your son’s good nursing.”
Mr Lester turned round to Alvar, who was beside him.
“I owe you a debt nothing can repay. I can never thank you for my boy’s life,” he said, warmly.
“Ah, do youthankme? You insult me!” cried Alvar, suddenly and fiercely. “Is he more to you than to me—my one friend—my brother—Cherito mio!” And, completely overcome, Alvar clasped his hands over his face and dashed out of the room.
Jack followed; but his admiration of Alvar’s self-control was somewhat shaken by the sort of fury of indignation and emotion that seemed to stifle him, as he poured out a torrent of words, half Spanish, half English, walking about the room and shedding tears of excitement.
“I say,” said Jack, “they won’t letyougo in to Cherry next, and then what will he do?”
Alvar subsided after a few moments, and said, simply and rather sadly,—
“It is that my father does not understand me. But no matter—Cherry is better—all is right now.”
Chapter Twenty.Face to Face.“And with such words—a lie!—a lie!She broke my heart and flung it by.”In the early days of August, after as long a delay as she could find excuse for, Ruth Seyton returned to Elderthwaite, knowing that Rupert was to come next week to Oakby for the grouse shooting, and that Cheriton was ready to claim her promise; for as she came on the very day of her arrival to a garden-party at Mrs Ellesmere’s, she held in her pocket a letter written in defiance of her prohibition, urging her to let him speak to her again, and full of love and longing for her presence.She knew that Rupert was coming, for the quarrel between them was at an end. Ruth had been very dull and desolate during her quiet visit to some old friends of her mother’s, very much shocked at hearing from Virginia of Cherry’s illness, and more self-reproachful for having let him linger in the damp shrubberies by her side than for the greater injury she had done him.She wrote on the spur of the moment, and sent Alvar a kind message of sympathy; but every day her promise to Cheriton seemed more unreal, and when at last Rupert came, ashamed of the foolish dispute, and only wanting to laugh at and forget it, she yielded to his first word, and, though a little hurt to find how lightly he could regard a lover’s quarrel, was too happy to forgive and be forgiven. But one thing she knew that he would not have forgiven, and that was her reception of Cheriton’s offer, and though it had never entered into her theories of life to deceive the real lover, she let it pass unconfessed—nay, let Rupert suppose, though she did not put it in words, that she had discovered “Cheriton’s folly” in time to put it aside.That she must shortly meet them both, and in each other’s presence, was the one thought in her mind, even while she heard from Virginia that Cherry was almost well again, and detected a touch of chagrin in her eager account of Alvar’s clever and constant care. “No, she had not seen him yesterday, but they would all meet to-day.”Still it was startling, when the two girls came out into the garden of the rectory, to see in the sunshine Cheriton Lester with a mallet in his hand, looking tall and delicate, but with a face of eager greeting turned full on her own.In another moment he held her hand in a close, tight grasp, as she dropped her eyes and hoped that he was better.“Quite well now,” said Cheriton, in a tone that Ruth fancied every one must interpret truly.“That is, when he obeys orders,” said another voice; and Ruth felt her heart stand still, for Rupert came up to Cheriton’s side and held out his hand to her.For the first time in her life she was sorry to see him. She could have screamed with the surprise, and her face betrayed an agitation that made Cheriton’s heart leap, as he attributed it to her meeting with him after his dangerous illness.“I am quite well,” he repeated. “I am not going to give any more trouble, I hope, now.”Rupert looked unusually full of spirits. “Good news,” he whispered to Ruth, with a smile of triumph. She could hardly smile back at him. Alvar now came up and spoke to them. He looked very grave; as Ruth fancied, reproachful.Some one asked Ruth to play croquet, and she declined; then felt as if the game would have been a refuge. But she took what seemed the lesser risk, and walked away with Rupert; and Cheriton tried in vain for the opportunity of a word with her—she eluded him, he hardly knew how. The sense of suspicion and suspense which had been growing all through the later weeks of his recovery was coming to a point.Ruth seemed like a mocking fairy, like some unreliable vision, as he saw her smiling and gracious—nay, answered occasional remarks from her—but could never meet her eyes, nor obtain from her one real response.These perpetual, impalpable rebuffs raised such a tumult in Cheriton’s mind that he restrained himself with a forcible effort from some desperate measure which should oblige her to listen to him, while all his native reticence and pride could hardly afford him self-control enough to play his part without discovery.An equal sense of baffled discomfort pressed on Virginia. She had very seldom seen a cloud on Alvar’s brow; he never committed such an act of discourtesy as to be out of temper in her presence; but to-day he looked so stern as to prompt her to say, timidly, “Has anything vexed you, Alvar?”“How could I be vexed when you are here, queen of my heart?” said Alvar, turning to her with a smile. “See, will you come to get some strawberries—it is hot?”“I would rather you told me when things trouble you,” said Virginia.“It is not for you,mi doña, to hear of things that are troubling,” said Alvar, still rather abstractedly.“Are you still anxious about Cherry?” she persisted.“Ay de mi, yes; I am anxious about him,” said Alvar, sharply; then changing, “but I am ungallant to show you my anxiety. That is not for you.”“Ah, how you misunderstand what I want!” she cried. “If I only knew what you feel, if you would talk to me about yourself! But it is like giving an Eastern lady fine dresses and sugar-plums.”The gentle Virginia was angry and agitated. All through Cheriton’s illness she had felt herself kept at a distance by Alvar, known herself unable to comfort him, had suffered pangs that were like enough to jealousy, to intensify themselves by self-reproach. Yet she gloried in Alvar’s devotion to his brother, in his skill and tenderness. Alvar did not perceive what she wanted, and, moreover, was of course unable to tell her the present cause of his annoyance, at the existence of which he did not wish her to guess.“See now,” he said, taking her hands and kissing them, “how I am discourteous; I am sulky, and I let you see it. Forgive me, forgive me, it shall be so no more. You shed tears; ah, my queen, they reproach me!”Virginia yielded to his caresses and his kindness, and blamed herself. Some day, perhaps, in a quieter moment, she could show him that she wanted to share his troubles and not be protected from them. In the meantime his presence was almost enough.Alvar, like some others of his name, was a person of slow perceptions, and was apt to be absorbed in one idea at a time. He did not guess that while he paid Virginia all the courtesy that he thought her due she longed for a far closer union of spirits. He was proud of being Cheriton’s chief dependence during the tedious recovery that none of the others could bear to think incomplete, and to find that his tact and consideration made him a welcome companion when Jack’s ponderous discussions were too great a fatigue. But he would not endure thanks, and after the outburst with which he had received his father’s nobody proffered them. Not one of the others, full of anger with Ruth and of anxiety for Cheriton, could have abstained from fretting him with one word on the subject, as Alvar did all that afternoon and evening. But his mind was free to think of nothing else.As for Ruth, the moment that should have been full of unalloyed bliss for her, the moment when Rupert told her that concealment was no longer necessary, was distracted by the terror of discovery.Rupert had to tell her that the sale of a farm, effected on unusually advantageous terms, had made the declaration of his wishes possible to him, and he was now ready to present himself before her guardians and ask their consent to a regular engagement. Ruth was about to go back to her grandmother, and all might now be well. Ruth did not know how to be glad; she could not tell how deeply the Lesters might blame her. Her one hope was in Cheriton’s generosity, and to him at least she must tell the whole truth.“To-morrow I shall come and see you,” he said gravely, as he wished her good-night, and she managed to give him an assenting glance, but he knew that she was treating him ill, and tormented himself with a thousand fancies—that his illness had changed him, that something during their separation had changed her. He said nothing, but the next day started alone for Elderthwaite.It was a bright morning, with a clear blue sky. Cheriton passed into the wood and through the flickering shadows of the larches. He did not spend the time of his walk in forming any plans as to how he should meet Ruth; he set his mind on the one fact that a meeting was certain. But perhaps the brightness of the morning influenced his mood, for as he came out on to the bit of bare hill-side that divided the wood from the Elderthwaite property, a certain happiness of anticipation possessed him—circumstances might account for the discomfort of the preceding day, Ruth’s eyes might once more meet his own, her voice once more tell him that she loved him.The bit of fell was divided from Mr Seyton’s plantation by a low stone wall, mossy, and overgrown with clumps of harebells and parsley fern, and half smothered by the tall brackens and brambles that grew on either side of it. Beyond were a few stunted, ill-grown oak-trees, with a wild undergrowth of hazel.As Cheriton came across the soft, smooth turf of the hill-side, he became aware that some one was sitting on the wall beside the wide gap that led into the plantation, and he quickened his steps with a thrill of hope as he recognised Ruth. She stood up as he approached and waited for him, as he exclaimed eagerly,—“This is too good of you!”“Oh, no!” said Ruth, and began to cry.Her eyes were red already, and with her curly hair less deftly arranged than usual, and her little black hat pushed back from her face, she had an air indescribably childish and forlorn.Every thought of resentment passed from Cheriton’s mind, he was by her side in a moment, entreating to be told of her trouble, and in his presence the telling of her story was so dreadful to her that perhaps nothing but the knowledge of Rupert’s neighbourhood could have induced her to do it. Ruth hated to be in disgrace, and genuine as were her tears, she was not without a thought of prepossessing him in her favour. But she could not run the risk of Rupert’s suddenly coming through the fir-wood.“Please come this way,” she said, breaking from him and skirting along inside the wall till they were out of sight of the pathway. Then she began, averting her face and plucking at the fern-leaves in the wall.“I—I don’t know how to tell you, but you are so good and kind and generous, so much—muchbetter than I am—you won’t be hard on me.”“It doesn’t take much goodness to make me feel for your trouble,” said Cheriton, tenderly. “Tell me, my love, and see if I am hard.”“Every oneishard on a girl who has been as foolish as I have.”Cheriton began to think that she was going to tell him of some undue encouragement given to some other lover in his absence or before her promise to him, and to believe that here was the explanation of all that had perplexed him.“I shall never be offended when you tell me that I have no cause for offence,” he said, putting his hand down on hers as she fingered the fern-leaves.“Indeed, I would not have deceived you so long, but for your illness,” said Ruth, a little more firmly.“Deceived me! Dearest, don’t use such hard words of yourself. Tell me what all this means. What fancy is this?”“Will you promise—promise me to be generous and to forgive me? Oh, you may ruin all my life if you will,” said Ruth, passionately.“Iruinyourlife! ah, you little know! When my life was given back to me, I was glad because it belonged to you,” said Cheriton, faltering in his earnestness.“Then oh! Cherry, Cherry,” cried Ruth, suddenly turning on him and clasping her hands, “then give me back my foolish promise—forget it altogether—let us be friends as we were when I was a little girl. Oh, Cherry, forgive me—I cannot—cannot do it!”“What can you mean?” said Cheriton, slowly, and with so little evidence of surprise that Ruth took courage to go on.“Cherry!” she repeated, as if clinging to the name that marked her old relation to him; “Cherry, a long time ago—last spring, I was engaged to some one else—to your cousin; but it suited him—us—to say nothing of it at first. And oh! I was jealous and foolish, and we quarrelled, and I was in a passion, and thought to show him I didn’t care. And you came that day at Milford, and I knew how good you were, and you begged so hard I couldn’t resist you—you gave me no time. And then very soon he came back, and I knew I had made a mistake. I would have told you at once, indeed I would, but for your illness. How could I then?”Cheriton stood looking at her, and while she spoke, his astonished gaze grew stern and piercing, till she shrank from him and turned away. Then he said, with a sort of incredulous amazement, with which rising anger contended,—“Then younevermeant what you said? When you told me that you loved me, it was false—you did not mean to give yourself to me? You kissed me to deceive me?”“Oh, Cheriton!” sobbed Ruth, covering her face, “don’t—don’t put it like that. I was very—very foolish—very wicked, but it was not all plain in that way. Won’t you forgive me? I was so very unhappy! I thought you were always kind—”“Kind!” ejaculated Cheriton. “There is only one way of putting it! Which is your lover, to which of us are you promised, to Rupert or to me?”Anger, scorn, and a pain as yet hardly felt, intensified Cheriton’s accent. She had expected him to plead for himself, to bemoan his loss, and instead she shrank and quailed before his judgment of her deceit. His last words awoke a spark of defiance, and suddenly, desperately, she faced him and said, clearly,—“To Rupert.”Cheriton put his hand back and leant against the wall. He was beginning to feel the force of the blow. After a moment he raised his head, and looked at her again, with a face now pale and mournful.“Oh, Ruth, is it indeed so? Have I nothing to hope—nothing even toremember? Did younevermean it—never?”“I was so angry—so miserable that I was mad,” faltered Ruth. “I thoughthewas false tome.”“So you took me in to make up for it?” said Cheriton roughly, his indignation again gaining ground. “Well, I should thank you for at last undeceiving me!”He turned as if to go; but Ruth sobbed out, “I know it was very wrong, indeed I am sorry for you. I can never, never be happy, if you don’t forgive me.”“What can you mean by forgiving?” said Cheriton bitterly. “I wish I had died before I knew this! You have deceived me and made a fool of me, while I thought you—I thought you—”“Then,” cried Ruth, stung by the change of feeling his words implied, “you can tell them all about it if you will, and ruin me!”“What!” exclaimed Cheriton, starting upright. “Isthatwhat you can think possible? Isthatwhy you are crying? You may be perfectlyhappy! The promise you had the prudence to exact has been unbroken. No! when I thought that I was dying, I told Alvar thatyoumight be spared any shock. Neither he nor I are likely to speak of it further. I had better wish you good-morning.”It was Cheriton whose love had been scorned, whose hopes had all been dashed to the ground in the last half-hour, and who had received a blow that had changed the world for him; but it had come in such a form that the injured self-respect struggled for self-preservation. The first effect on his clear, upright nature was incredulous anger, a sense of resistance, of shame and scorn, that, all-contending and half-suppressed, made him terrible to Ruth, whose self-deceit had expected quite another reception of her words. She had shrunk from the idea of giving him pain, had dreaded the confession of her own misdeeds; but she had indemnified her conscience to herself for ill-treating Cheriton by a sort of unnatural and unreal admiration of what she called his goodness; which seemed to her to render self-abnegation natural, if not easy, to him.She, with her passionate feelings, her warm heart, might be forgiven for error; but he, since he was high-principled and religious, would surely make it easier for her, would stand in an ideal relation to her and tell her that “her happiness was dearer than his own.”“Good” people were capable of that sort of self-sacrificing devotion. She thought, as many do, that Cheriton’s battle was less hard to fight, because he had hitherto had the strength to win it. Poor boy, it had come to the forlorn hope now! He only knew that he must not turn and fly.As Ruth looked up at him all tear-stained and deprecatory, his mood changed.“Oh, Ruth, Ruth—Ruth!” he cried, as he turned away, “and I loved you so!”But he left her without a touch of the hand; without a parting, without a pardon. No other relations could replace for him those she had destroyed. Ruth watched him hurry across the fell and into the fir-wood, and then, as she sank down among the ferns and gave way to a final burst of misery, she thought to herself, “Oh, Rupert, Rupert, what I have endured for your sake!”
“And with such words—a lie!—a lie!She broke my heart and flung it by.”
“And with such words—a lie!—a lie!She broke my heart and flung it by.”
In the early days of August, after as long a delay as she could find excuse for, Ruth Seyton returned to Elderthwaite, knowing that Rupert was to come next week to Oakby for the grouse shooting, and that Cheriton was ready to claim her promise; for as she came on the very day of her arrival to a garden-party at Mrs Ellesmere’s, she held in her pocket a letter written in defiance of her prohibition, urging her to let him speak to her again, and full of love and longing for her presence.
She knew that Rupert was coming, for the quarrel between them was at an end. Ruth had been very dull and desolate during her quiet visit to some old friends of her mother’s, very much shocked at hearing from Virginia of Cherry’s illness, and more self-reproachful for having let him linger in the damp shrubberies by her side than for the greater injury she had done him.
She wrote on the spur of the moment, and sent Alvar a kind message of sympathy; but every day her promise to Cheriton seemed more unreal, and when at last Rupert came, ashamed of the foolish dispute, and only wanting to laugh at and forget it, she yielded to his first word, and, though a little hurt to find how lightly he could regard a lover’s quarrel, was too happy to forgive and be forgiven. But one thing she knew that he would not have forgiven, and that was her reception of Cheriton’s offer, and though it had never entered into her theories of life to deceive the real lover, she let it pass unconfessed—nay, let Rupert suppose, though she did not put it in words, that she had discovered “Cheriton’s folly” in time to put it aside.
That she must shortly meet them both, and in each other’s presence, was the one thought in her mind, even while she heard from Virginia that Cherry was almost well again, and detected a touch of chagrin in her eager account of Alvar’s clever and constant care. “No, she had not seen him yesterday, but they would all meet to-day.”
Still it was startling, when the two girls came out into the garden of the rectory, to see in the sunshine Cheriton Lester with a mallet in his hand, looking tall and delicate, but with a face of eager greeting turned full on her own.
In another moment he held her hand in a close, tight grasp, as she dropped her eyes and hoped that he was better.
“Quite well now,” said Cheriton, in a tone that Ruth fancied every one must interpret truly.
“That is, when he obeys orders,” said another voice; and Ruth felt her heart stand still, for Rupert came up to Cheriton’s side and held out his hand to her.
For the first time in her life she was sorry to see him. She could have screamed with the surprise, and her face betrayed an agitation that made Cheriton’s heart leap, as he attributed it to her meeting with him after his dangerous illness.
“I am quite well,” he repeated. “I am not going to give any more trouble, I hope, now.”
Rupert looked unusually full of spirits. “Good news,” he whispered to Ruth, with a smile of triumph. She could hardly smile back at him. Alvar now came up and spoke to them. He looked very grave; as Ruth fancied, reproachful.
Some one asked Ruth to play croquet, and she declined; then felt as if the game would have been a refuge. But she took what seemed the lesser risk, and walked away with Rupert; and Cheriton tried in vain for the opportunity of a word with her—she eluded him, he hardly knew how. The sense of suspicion and suspense which had been growing all through the later weeks of his recovery was coming to a point.
Ruth seemed like a mocking fairy, like some unreliable vision, as he saw her smiling and gracious—nay, answered occasional remarks from her—but could never meet her eyes, nor obtain from her one real response.
These perpetual, impalpable rebuffs raised such a tumult in Cheriton’s mind that he restrained himself with a forcible effort from some desperate measure which should oblige her to listen to him, while all his native reticence and pride could hardly afford him self-control enough to play his part without discovery.
An equal sense of baffled discomfort pressed on Virginia. She had very seldom seen a cloud on Alvar’s brow; he never committed such an act of discourtesy as to be out of temper in her presence; but to-day he looked so stern as to prompt her to say, timidly, “Has anything vexed you, Alvar?”
“How could I be vexed when you are here, queen of my heart?” said Alvar, turning to her with a smile. “See, will you come to get some strawberries—it is hot?”
“I would rather you told me when things trouble you,” said Virginia.
“It is not for you,mi doña, to hear of things that are troubling,” said Alvar, still rather abstractedly.
“Are you still anxious about Cherry?” she persisted.
“Ay de mi, yes; I am anxious about him,” said Alvar, sharply; then changing, “but I am ungallant to show you my anxiety. That is not for you.”
“Ah, how you misunderstand what I want!” she cried. “If I only knew what you feel, if you would talk to me about yourself! But it is like giving an Eastern lady fine dresses and sugar-plums.”
The gentle Virginia was angry and agitated. All through Cheriton’s illness she had felt herself kept at a distance by Alvar, known herself unable to comfort him, had suffered pangs that were like enough to jealousy, to intensify themselves by self-reproach. Yet she gloried in Alvar’s devotion to his brother, in his skill and tenderness. Alvar did not perceive what she wanted, and, moreover, was of course unable to tell her the present cause of his annoyance, at the existence of which he did not wish her to guess.
“See now,” he said, taking her hands and kissing them, “how I am discourteous; I am sulky, and I let you see it. Forgive me, forgive me, it shall be so no more. You shed tears; ah, my queen, they reproach me!”
Virginia yielded to his caresses and his kindness, and blamed herself. Some day, perhaps, in a quieter moment, she could show him that she wanted to share his troubles and not be protected from them. In the meantime his presence was almost enough.
Alvar, like some others of his name, was a person of slow perceptions, and was apt to be absorbed in one idea at a time. He did not guess that while he paid Virginia all the courtesy that he thought her due she longed for a far closer union of spirits. He was proud of being Cheriton’s chief dependence during the tedious recovery that none of the others could bear to think incomplete, and to find that his tact and consideration made him a welcome companion when Jack’s ponderous discussions were too great a fatigue. But he would not endure thanks, and after the outburst with which he had received his father’s nobody proffered them. Not one of the others, full of anger with Ruth and of anxiety for Cheriton, could have abstained from fretting him with one word on the subject, as Alvar did all that afternoon and evening. But his mind was free to think of nothing else.
As for Ruth, the moment that should have been full of unalloyed bliss for her, the moment when Rupert told her that concealment was no longer necessary, was distracted by the terror of discovery.
Rupert had to tell her that the sale of a farm, effected on unusually advantageous terms, had made the declaration of his wishes possible to him, and he was now ready to present himself before her guardians and ask their consent to a regular engagement. Ruth was about to go back to her grandmother, and all might now be well. Ruth did not know how to be glad; she could not tell how deeply the Lesters might blame her. Her one hope was in Cheriton’s generosity, and to him at least she must tell the whole truth.
“To-morrow I shall come and see you,” he said gravely, as he wished her good-night, and she managed to give him an assenting glance, but he knew that she was treating him ill, and tormented himself with a thousand fancies—that his illness had changed him, that something during their separation had changed her. He said nothing, but the next day started alone for Elderthwaite.
It was a bright morning, with a clear blue sky. Cheriton passed into the wood and through the flickering shadows of the larches. He did not spend the time of his walk in forming any plans as to how he should meet Ruth; he set his mind on the one fact that a meeting was certain. But perhaps the brightness of the morning influenced his mood, for as he came out on to the bit of bare hill-side that divided the wood from the Elderthwaite property, a certain happiness of anticipation possessed him—circumstances might account for the discomfort of the preceding day, Ruth’s eyes might once more meet his own, her voice once more tell him that she loved him.
The bit of fell was divided from Mr Seyton’s plantation by a low stone wall, mossy, and overgrown with clumps of harebells and parsley fern, and half smothered by the tall brackens and brambles that grew on either side of it. Beyond were a few stunted, ill-grown oak-trees, with a wild undergrowth of hazel.
As Cheriton came across the soft, smooth turf of the hill-side, he became aware that some one was sitting on the wall beside the wide gap that led into the plantation, and he quickened his steps with a thrill of hope as he recognised Ruth. She stood up as he approached and waited for him, as he exclaimed eagerly,—
“This is too good of you!”
“Oh, no!” said Ruth, and began to cry.
Her eyes were red already, and with her curly hair less deftly arranged than usual, and her little black hat pushed back from her face, she had an air indescribably childish and forlorn.
Every thought of resentment passed from Cheriton’s mind, he was by her side in a moment, entreating to be told of her trouble, and in his presence the telling of her story was so dreadful to her that perhaps nothing but the knowledge of Rupert’s neighbourhood could have induced her to do it. Ruth hated to be in disgrace, and genuine as were her tears, she was not without a thought of prepossessing him in her favour. But she could not run the risk of Rupert’s suddenly coming through the fir-wood.
“Please come this way,” she said, breaking from him and skirting along inside the wall till they were out of sight of the pathway. Then she began, averting her face and plucking at the fern-leaves in the wall.
“I—I don’t know how to tell you, but you are so good and kind and generous, so much—muchbetter than I am—you won’t be hard on me.”
“It doesn’t take much goodness to make me feel for your trouble,” said Cheriton, tenderly. “Tell me, my love, and see if I am hard.”
“Every oneishard on a girl who has been as foolish as I have.”
Cheriton began to think that she was going to tell him of some undue encouragement given to some other lover in his absence or before her promise to him, and to believe that here was the explanation of all that had perplexed him.
“I shall never be offended when you tell me that I have no cause for offence,” he said, putting his hand down on hers as she fingered the fern-leaves.
“Indeed, I would not have deceived you so long, but for your illness,” said Ruth, a little more firmly.
“Deceived me! Dearest, don’t use such hard words of yourself. Tell me what all this means. What fancy is this?”
“Will you promise—promise me to be generous and to forgive me? Oh, you may ruin all my life if you will,” said Ruth, passionately.
“Iruinyourlife! ah, you little know! When my life was given back to me, I was glad because it belonged to you,” said Cheriton, faltering in his earnestness.
“Then oh! Cherry, Cherry,” cried Ruth, suddenly turning on him and clasping her hands, “then give me back my foolish promise—forget it altogether—let us be friends as we were when I was a little girl. Oh, Cherry, forgive me—I cannot—cannot do it!”
“What can you mean?” said Cheriton, slowly, and with so little evidence of surprise that Ruth took courage to go on.
“Cherry!” she repeated, as if clinging to the name that marked her old relation to him; “Cherry, a long time ago—last spring, I was engaged to some one else—to your cousin; but it suited him—us—to say nothing of it at first. And oh! I was jealous and foolish, and we quarrelled, and I was in a passion, and thought to show him I didn’t care. And you came that day at Milford, and I knew how good you were, and you begged so hard I couldn’t resist you—you gave me no time. And then very soon he came back, and I knew I had made a mistake. I would have told you at once, indeed I would, but for your illness. How could I then?”
Cheriton stood looking at her, and while she spoke, his astonished gaze grew stern and piercing, till she shrank from him and turned away. Then he said, with a sort of incredulous amazement, with which rising anger contended,—
“Then younevermeant what you said? When you told me that you loved me, it was false—you did not mean to give yourself to me? You kissed me to deceive me?”
“Oh, Cheriton!” sobbed Ruth, covering her face, “don’t—don’t put it like that. I was very—very foolish—very wicked, but it was not all plain in that way. Won’t you forgive me? I was so very unhappy! I thought you were always kind—”
“Kind!” ejaculated Cheriton. “There is only one way of putting it! Which is your lover, to which of us are you promised, to Rupert or to me?”
Anger, scorn, and a pain as yet hardly felt, intensified Cheriton’s accent. She had expected him to plead for himself, to bemoan his loss, and instead she shrank and quailed before his judgment of her deceit. His last words awoke a spark of defiance, and suddenly, desperately, she faced him and said, clearly,—
“To Rupert.”
Cheriton put his hand back and leant against the wall. He was beginning to feel the force of the blow. After a moment he raised his head, and looked at her again, with a face now pale and mournful.
“Oh, Ruth, is it indeed so? Have I nothing to hope—nothing even toremember? Did younevermean it—never?”
“I was so angry—so miserable that I was mad,” faltered Ruth. “I thoughthewas false tome.”
“So you took me in to make up for it?” said Cheriton roughly, his indignation again gaining ground. “Well, I should thank you for at last undeceiving me!”
He turned as if to go; but Ruth sobbed out, “I know it was very wrong, indeed I am sorry for you. I can never, never be happy, if you don’t forgive me.”
“What can you mean by forgiving?” said Cheriton bitterly. “I wish I had died before I knew this! You have deceived me and made a fool of me, while I thought you—I thought you—”
“Then,” cried Ruth, stung by the change of feeling his words implied, “you can tell them all about it if you will, and ruin me!”
“What!” exclaimed Cheriton, starting upright. “Isthatwhat you can think possible? Isthatwhy you are crying? You may be perfectlyhappy! The promise you had the prudence to exact has been unbroken. No! when I thought that I was dying, I told Alvar thatyoumight be spared any shock. Neither he nor I are likely to speak of it further. I had better wish you good-morning.”
It was Cheriton whose love had been scorned, whose hopes had all been dashed to the ground in the last half-hour, and who had received a blow that had changed the world for him; but it had come in such a form that the injured self-respect struggled for self-preservation. The first effect on his clear, upright nature was incredulous anger, a sense of resistance, of shame and scorn, that, all-contending and half-suppressed, made him terrible to Ruth, whose self-deceit had expected quite another reception of her words. She had shrunk from the idea of giving him pain, had dreaded the confession of her own misdeeds; but she had indemnified her conscience to herself for ill-treating Cheriton by a sort of unnatural and unreal admiration of what she called his goodness; which seemed to her to render self-abnegation natural, if not easy, to him.
She, with her passionate feelings, her warm heart, might be forgiven for error; but he, since he was high-principled and religious, would surely make it easier for her, would stand in an ideal relation to her and tell her that “her happiness was dearer than his own.”
“Good” people were capable of that sort of self-sacrificing devotion. She thought, as many do, that Cheriton’s battle was less hard to fight, because he had hitherto had the strength to win it. Poor boy, it had come to the forlorn hope now! He only knew that he must not turn and fly.
As Ruth looked up at him all tear-stained and deprecatory, his mood changed.
“Oh, Ruth, Ruth—Ruth!” he cried, as he turned away, “and I loved you so!”
But he left her without a touch of the hand; without a parting, without a pardon. No other relations could replace for him those she had destroyed. Ruth watched him hurry across the fell and into the fir-wood, and then, as she sank down among the ferns and gave way to a final burst of misery, she thought to herself, “Oh, Rupert, Rupert, what I have endured for your sake!”
Chapter Twenty One.In the Thick of the Fight.“Oh, that ’twere I had been false—not she!”In the meantime the unconscious Rupert was strolling up and down in front of the house waiting for his uncle to come out, and intending to take him into his confidence and ask for his good offices with Ruth’s guardians. It was well for her that he had no suspicion of what was passing; for little as she guessed it, he would have greatly resented her treachery towards Cheriton as well as towards himself. But Rupert was in high spirits, and when Mr Lester joined him, he told his tale with the best grace that he could. His uncle was pleased with the news, and questioned him pretty closely upon all its details, shook his head over the previous difficulties which Rupert admitted, told him that he was quite right to be open with him, congratulated him when he owned to having met with success with the lady herself, and, pleased with being consulted, threw himself heart and soul into the matter.As they came up towards the back of the house, they met Alvar, who, rather hastily, asked if they had seen Cheriton.“He went to take a walk. I am afraid he will be tired,” he explained.“Eh, Alvar, you’re too fidgety,” said his father good-humouredly. “There’s Cheriton, looking at the puppies.”Alvar looked, and beheld a group gathered in the doorway of a great barn, the figures standing out clear in the sunshine against the dark shadow behind. Nettie was standing in the centre with her arms apparently full of whining little puppies; the mother, a handsome retriever, was yelping and whining near. Buffer was barking and dancing in a state of frantic jealousy beside her. Bob and Jack were disputing over the merits of the puppies. Dick Seyton, with a cigar in his mouth, was leaning lazily against the barn door, while Cheriton, looking, to Alvar’s anxious eyes, startlingly pale, was standing near.“But say, Cherry, say,” urged Nettie, “which of them are to be kept? Don’t you think this is the best of all?”“That,” interrupted Bob, “that one will never be worth anything. Look, Cherry, this one’s head—”“Bob, what are you about here at this time in the morning?” said his father. “I told you I must have some work done these holidays. Be off with you at once.”“Cherry said yesterday he would come and help me,” growled Bob.“Iwant him,” said Mr Lester. “Got a piece of news for you, Cherry. No secret, Rupert, I suppose?”“I’ll tell Cherry presently,” said Rupert, thinking the audience large and embarrassing.Cheriton started, and the unseeing look went out of his eyes, and for one moment he looked at Rupert as if he could have knocked him down. Then the reflection of his own look on Alvar’s face brought back the instinct of concealment, the self-respect that held its own, while all their voices sounded strange and confused, and he could not tell how often his father had spoken to him or how long ago.“I think I can guess your news,” he said. “But I must go in. Come back to the house with me, Rupert.”He spoke rather slowly, but much in his usual manner. Rupert was aware that the news might not be altogether pleasant to him; but he had the tact to turn away with him at once; while Alvar watched them in utter surprise, the wildest surmises floating through his mind. But what Cherry wanted was to hear whether Rupert would confirm what Ruth had told him; somehow he could not feel sure if it were true.“How long have you been engaged?” he said; “that was what you were going to tell me, wasn’t it?”“My uncle is frightfully indiscreet,” said Rupert, with a conscious laugh. “Nothing has been settled yet with the authorities; but we have understood each other for some time. She—she’s one in a thousand, and I don’t deserve my luck.”Rupert was very nervous; he had always thought that Cheriton had a boyish fancy for Ruth, though he was far from imagining its extent, and he was divided between a sense of triumph over him and a most real desire not to let the triumph be apparent, or to give him unnecessary pain. Being successful, he could afford to be generous, and talked on fast lest Cherry should say something for which he might afterwards be sorry.“I suppose we haven’t kept our secret so well as we thought,” he said, laughing, “as you guessed it so quickly. All last spring I was afraid of Alvar’s observations.”“Did Alvar know? He might have—he might—?” Cheriton stopped abruptly, conscious only of passion hitherto unknown. He never marvelled afterwards at tales of sudden wild revenge. In that first hour of bitter wrong he could have killed Rupert, had a weapon been in his hand, have challenged him to a deadly duel, had such a thought been instinctive to his generation. Rupert did not look at him, or the wrath in his eyes must have betrayed him. He longed to revenge himself, to tell Rupert all; even his sense of honour shook and faltered in the storm. “She promisedme! She kissedme!” The words seemed to sound in his ears, something within held them back from his lips. Another moment, and Alvar touched his arm.“Come in, Cherito, the wind is cold,” he said. “Come in with me.”Rupert, glad to close the interview, little as he guessed how it might have ended, turned away, saying, with a half-laugh, “I must go and check Uncle Gerrald’s communications; they aretoopremature.”Then Cheriton felt himself tremble from head to foot; he knew that Alvar was talking, uttering words of vehement sympathy, but he could not tell what they were.“You came in time—you came in time to save me!” said Cheriton wildly, as his senses began to recover their balance. He turned away his face for a few moments, then spoke collectedly.“Thank you. That is all over now! You see I’m not strong yet. You will not see me like this again. The one thing is to prevent any one from guessing, above all my father.”“But, my brother, how can you—you cannot conceal from all that you suffer?” said Alvar, dismayed.“Cannot I? Iwill,” said Cheriton, with his mouth set, while his hands still trembled.“Why?Youhave done no wrong,” said Alvar. “Are you the first who has been deceived by a faithless woman? She is but a woman, my brother; there are others. You feel now that you could stab your rival to revenge yourself. Ah, that will pass; she’s only a woman. Heavens! I tore my hair. I wept. I told all my friends of my despair; it was the sooner over. You will find others.”“We usually keep our disappointments to ourselves,” said Cheriton coldly. “I could not forgive any betrayal. Now I’ll go in by myself. I’ll come down to lunch. As you say, I’m not the first fellow who has been made a fool of.”“What will he do?” thought Alvar as he reluctantly left him. “He would forgive his rival sooner than himself. They pretend to feel nothing, my brothers, that gives them much trouble. If I were to tell a falsehood to please them, they would despise me; but Cherito will tell many falsehoods to hide that he grieves.”Cheriton gathered himself up enough to hide his rage and grief, hardly enough in any way to struggle with them, and the suffering was as uncontrollable and as exhausting as the pain and fever of his late illness. It shut out even more completely the remembrance of anything but his own sensations. And it was all so bitter—he felt the injury so keenly—he had not yet power to feel the loss. He kept up well, however, and during the next two or three days his father saw nothing amiss; while Alvar, though anxious about his health, regarded the misery as a phase that must have its way. But Nettie declared that Cherry was cross, and Jack, who had lately acquired the habit of noticing him, felt that he was not himself. It was difficult to define; but it seemed to him as if his brother never looked, spoke or acted exactly as might have been expected. Things seemed to pass him by.The twelfth of August proving hopelessly wet and wild, even Mr Lester could not think his joining the shooting party allowable, and Cheriton expressed a proper amount of disappointment; but Jack recollected that when they had all been speculating on the weather the night before, Cherry had hardly turned his head to look at it. He would not let Alvar stay at home with him, and felt glad to be free from observation.In the meantime matters had not gone much more pleasantly at Elderthwaite. Ruth was in such dread of discovery that even in Rupert’s presence she could not be at ease. Her conscience reproached her, and she was by no means sure that Rupert was quite unsuspicious, for he talked a good deal about his cousin, and once said that he thought him much changed by his illness. Neither was she happy with Virginia, towards whom a certain amount of confidence was necessary, as she could not lead her to suppose that all had been freshly settled with Rupert; and Virginia, who was usually reticent and shy, questioned her closely as to Rupert’s behaviour and modes of action. Indeed she marvelled at her cousin’s ignorance, for Alvar seemed to her to imply displeasure in every look. He came seldom to Elderthwaite, and, when there, scarcely spoke of Cherry. Ruth could only hurry her return to her grandmother, which was to take place in a few days; but an Oakby dinner-party, in honour of the engagement, could not be avoided. Ruth dared not have a head-ache or a cold, and in a tremor most unlike her usual self she prepared to meet her two lovers face to face. If Cheriton had any mercy for her, or any feeling for himself, he would avoid her. How little she had once thought ever to be afraid of Cherry! But he was there, with a flower in his coat, and plenty of conversation, apparently on very good terms with Rupert, and facing the greeting with entire composure. He even ate his dinner; he sat, not opposite Ruth, but low down on the other side of the table, while she had Alvar for her neighbour—a very silent one, as Virginia, on his other side, remarked with a sigh. It would have been natural for her to talk to Rupert, who sat on the other side of her, but she felt Cheriton’s eyes on her in all their peculiar intenseness of expression. Ruth was very sensitive, and they seemed to mesmerise her; she grew absolutely pale, and she knew that Rupert saw it. How could Cheriton be so cruel!Her white face and drooping lip flashed the same thought to Cheriton himself. What a coward he was thus to revenge himself! He turned his head away with a sudden rush of softening feeling. Disappointed love and jealousy had, she told him, driven her mad—what were they making of him? At least it was more manly to let her alone.“Cheriton, I want a word with you,” said Rupert, turning into the smoking-room when the party was over. “Of course, you have a right to refuse to answer me, but—I can’t but observe your manner. Do you consider yourself in any way aggrieved by my engagement?”It did not occur to Cheriton that, if Rupert had had full trust in Ruth, he would never have put such a question. He was conscious of such unusual feelings that he knew not how far he stood self-betrayed in manner. Rupert was his cousin, almost as intimate as a brother, and he could not resent the question quite as if it had come from a stranger. It could have been answered by a short negative, leaving the sting that had prompted it where it had been before. Full of passion and resentment as Cheriton still was, he could notnowhave broken his word and deliberately betrayed the girl who had betrayed him.He was silent for a minute; still another part was open. At last he looked up at Rupert and said,—“I made her an offer—she has refused me. Don’t mind my way—there’s an end of it.”“Cherry, you’re a good fellow, a real good fellow—thank you!” said Rupert warmly. “I’m sorry, with all my heart.”“Don’t think about me,” repeated Cheriton rather stiffly. “But I’ll say good-night.”He was so obviously putting a great force on himself that Rupert, feeling that he could not be the one to offer sympathy, would not detain him; but as he gave his hand a hearty squeeze, Cherry, with another great effort, said,—“Idowish her—happiness,” then turned away and hurried upstairs.
“Oh, that ’twere I had been false—not she!”
“Oh, that ’twere I had been false—not she!”
In the meantime the unconscious Rupert was strolling up and down in front of the house waiting for his uncle to come out, and intending to take him into his confidence and ask for his good offices with Ruth’s guardians. It was well for her that he had no suspicion of what was passing; for little as she guessed it, he would have greatly resented her treachery towards Cheriton as well as towards himself. But Rupert was in high spirits, and when Mr Lester joined him, he told his tale with the best grace that he could. His uncle was pleased with the news, and questioned him pretty closely upon all its details, shook his head over the previous difficulties which Rupert admitted, told him that he was quite right to be open with him, congratulated him when he owned to having met with success with the lady herself, and, pleased with being consulted, threw himself heart and soul into the matter.
As they came up towards the back of the house, they met Alvar, who, rather hastily, asked if they had seen Cheriton.
“He went to take a walk. I am afraid he will be tired,” he explained.
“Eh, Alvar, you’re too fidgety,” said his father good-humouredly. “There’s Cheriton, looking at the puppies.”
Alvar looked, and beheld a group gathered in the doorway of a great barn, the figures standing out clear in the sunshine against the dark shadow behind. Nettie was standing in the centre with her arms apparently full of whining little puppies; the mother, a handsome retriever, was yelping and whining near. Buffer was barking and dancing in a state of frantic jealousy beside her. Bob and Jack were disputing over the merits of the puppies. Dick Seyton, with a cigar in his mouth, was leaning lazily against the barn door, while Cheriton, looking, to Alvar’s anxious eyes, startlingly pale, was standing near.
“But say, Cherry, say,” urged Nettie, “which of them are to be kept? Don’t you think this is the best of all?”
“That,” interrupted Bob, “that one will never be worth anything. Look, Cherry, this one’s head—”
“Bob, what are you about here at this time in the morning?” said his father. “I told you I must have some work done these holidays. Be off with you at once.”
“Cherry said yesterday he would come and help me,” growled Bob.
“Iwant him,” said Mr Lester. “Got a piece of news for you, Cherry. No secret, Rupert, I suppose?”
“I’ll tell Cherry presently,” said Rupert, thinking the audience large and embarrassing.
Cheriton started, and the unseeing look went out of his eyes, and for one moment he looked at Rupert as if he could have knocked him down. Then the reflection of his own look on Alvar’s face brought back the instinct of concealment, the self-respect that held its own, while all their voices sounded strange and confused, and he could not tell how often his father had spoken to him or how long ago.
“I think I can guess your news,” he said. “But I must go in. Come back to the house with me, Rupert.”
He spoke rather slowly, but much in his usual manner. Rupert was aware that the news might not be altogether pleasant to him; but he had the tact to turn away with him at once; while Alvar watched them in utter surprise, the wildest surmises floating through his mind. But what Cherry wanted was to hear whether Rupert would confirm what Ruth had told him; somehow he could not feel sure if it were true.
“How long have you been engaged?” he said; “that was what you were going to tell me, wasn’t it?”
“My uncle is frightfully indiscreet,” said Rupert, with a conscious laugh. “Nothing has been settled yet with the authorities; but we have understood each other for some time. She—she’s one in a thousand, and I don’t deserve my luck.”
Rupert was very nervous; he had always thought that Cheriton had a boyish fancy for Ruth, though he was far from imagining its extent, and he was divided between a sense of triumph over him and a most real desire not to let the triumph be apparent, or to give him unnecessary pain. Being successful, he could afford to be generous, and talked on fast lest Cherry should say something for which he might afterwards be sorry.
“I suppose we haven’t kept our secret so well as we thought,” he said, laughing, “as you guessed it so quickly. All last spring I was afraid of Alvar’s observations.”
“Did Alvar know? He might have—he might—?” Cheriton stopped abruptly, conscious only of passion hitherto unknown. He never marvelled afterwards at tales of sudden wild revenge. In that first hour of bitter wrong he could have killed Rupert, had a weapon been in his hand, have challenged him to a deadly duel, had such a thought been instinctive to his generation. Rupert did not look at him, or the wrath in his eyes must have betrayed him. He longed to revenge himself, to tell Rupert all; even his sense of honour shook and faltered in the storm. “She promisedme! She kissedme!” The words seemed to sound in his ears, something within held them back from his lips. Another moment, and Alvar touched his arm.
“Come in, Cherito, the wind is cold,” he said. “Come in with me.”
Rupert, glad to close the interview, little as he guessed how it might have ended, turned away, saying, with a half-laugh, “I must go and check Uncle Gerrald’s communications; they aretoopremature.”
Then Cheriton felt himself tremble from head to foot; he knew that Alvar was talking, uttering words of vehement sympathy, but he could not tell what they were.
“You came in time—you came in time to save me!” said Cheriton wildly, as his senses began to recover their balance. He turned away his face for a few moments, then spoke collectedly.
“Thank you. That is all over now! You see I’m not strong yet. You will not see me like this again. The one thing is to prevent any one from guessing, above all my father.”
“But, my brother, how can you—you cannot conceal from all that you suffer?” said Alvar, dismayed.
“Cannot I? Iwill,” said Cheriton, with his mouth set, while his hands still trembled.
“Why?Youhave done no wrong,” said Alvar. “Are you the first who has been deceived by a faithless woman? She is but a woman, my brother; there are others. You feel now that you could stab your rival to revenge yourself. Ah, that will pass; she’s only a woman. Heavens! I tore my hair. I wept. I told all my friends of my despair; it was the sooner over. You will find others.”
“We usually keep our disappointments to ourselves,” said Cheriton coldly. “I could not forgive any betrayal. Now I’ll go in by myself. I’ll come down to lunch. As you say, I’m not the first fellow who has been made a fool of.”
“What will he do?” thought Alvar as he reluctantly left him. “He would forgive his rival sooner than himself. They pretend to feel nothing, my brothers, that gives them much trouble. If I were to tell a falsehood to please them, they would despise me; but Cherito will tell many falsehoods to hide that he grieves.”
Cheriton gathered himself up enough to hide his rage and grief, hardly enough in any way to struggle with them, and the suffering was as uncontrollable and as exhausting as the pain and fever of his late illness. It shut out even more completely the remembrance of anything but his own sensations. And it was all so bitter—he felt the injury so keenly—he had not yet power to feel the loss. He kept up well, however, and during the next two or three days his father saw nothing amiss; while Alvar, though anxious about his health, regarded the misery as a phase that must have its way. But Nettie declared that Cherry was cross, and Jack, who had lately acquired the habit of noticing him, felt that he was not himself. It was difficult to define; but it seemed to him as if his brother never looked, spoke or acted exactly as might have been expected. Things seemed to pass him by.
The twelfth of August proving hopelessly wet and wild, even Mr Lester could not think his joining the shooting party allowable, and Cheriton expressed a proper amount of disappointment; but Jack recollected that when they had all been speculating on the weather the night before, Cherry had hardly turned his head to look at it. He would not let Alvar stay at home with him, and felt glad to be free from observation.
In the meantime matters had not gone much more pleasantly at Elderthwaite. Ruth was in such dread of discovery that even in Rupert’s presence she could not be at ease. Her conscience reproached her, and she was by no means sure that Rupert was quite unsuspicious, for he talked a good deal about his cousin, and once said that he thought him much changed by his illness. Neither was she happy with Virginia, towards whom a certain amount of confidence was necessary, as she could not lead her to suppose that all had been freshly settled with Rupert; and Virginia, who was usually reticent and shy, questioned her closely as to Rupert’s behaviour and modes of action. Indeed she marvelled at her cousin’s ignorance, for Alvar seemed to her to imply displeasure in every look. He came seldom to Elderthwaite, and, when there, scarcely spoke of Cherry. Ruth could only hurry her return to her grandmother, which was to take place in a few days; but an Oakby dinner-party, in honour of the engagement, could not be avoided. Ruth dared not have a head-ache or a cold, and in a tremor most unlike her usual self she prepared to meet her two lovers face to face. If Cheriton had any mercy for her, or any feeling for himself, he would avoid her. How little she had once thought ever to be afraid of Cherry! But he was there, with a flower in his coat, and plenty of conversation, apparently on very good terms with Rupert, and facing the greeting with entire composure. He even ate his dinner; he sat, not opposite Ruth, but low down on the other side of the table, while she had Alvar for her neighbour—a very silent one, as Virginia, on his other side, remarked with a sigh. It would have been natural for her to talk to Rupert, who sat on the other side of her, but she felt Cheriton’s eyes on her in all their peculiar intenseness of expression. Ruth was very sensitive, and they seemed to mesmerise her; she grew absolutely pale, and she knew that Rupert saw it. How could Cheriton be so cruel!
Her white face and drooping lip flashed the same thought to Cheriton himself. What a coward he was thus to revenge himself! He turned his head away with a sudden rush of softening feeling. Disappointed love and jealousy had, she told him, driven her mad—what were they making of him? At least it was more manly to let her alone.
“Cheriton, I want a word with you,” said Rupert, turning into the smoking-room when the party was over. “Of course, you have a right to refuse to answer me, but—I can’t but observe your manner. Do you consider yourself in any way aggrieved by my engagement?”
It did not occur to Cheriton that, if Rupert had had full trust in Ruth, he would never have put such a question. He was conscious of such unusual feelings that he knew not how far he stood self-betrayed in manner. Rupert was his cousin, almost as intimate as a brother, and he could not resent the question quite as if it had come from a stranger. It could have been answered by a short negative, leaving the sting that had prompted it where it had been before. Full of passion and resentment as Cheriton still was, he could notnowhave broken his word and deliberately betrayed the girl who had betrayed him.
He was silent for a minute; still another part was open. At last he looked up at Rupert and said,—
“I made her an offer—she has refused me. Don’t mind my way—there’s an end of it.”
“Cherry, you’re a good fellow, a real good fellow—thank you!” said Rupert warmly. “I’m sorry, with all my heart.”
“Don’t think about me,” repeated Cheriton rather stiffly. “But I’ll say good-night.”
He was so obviously putting a great force on himself that Rupert, feeling that he could not be the one to offer sympathy, would not detain him; but as he gave his hand a hearty squeeze, Cherry, with another great effort, said,—
“Idowish her—happiness,” then turned away and hurried upstairs.